Hon Max Bradford
Minister for Tertiary Education

14 September 1999

MEDIA RELEASE

Alliance Trying To Buy Student Vote

The Alliance Party is just trying to buy the student vote with other people’s money, Minister for Tertiary Education Max Bradford said today.

He was commenting on the Alliance’s tertiary student allowance policy.

“Already, the Alliance wants to dump about $300 million of costs a year onto the taxpayer by changing the Student Loan Scheme.

“Making changes to student allowances will see that cost reach around $600 million a year.

“This amount equates to the salaries of 10,000 teachers.

“The only way it would be affordable is to put taxes up,” Mr Bradford said.

“Higher tax rates will make it more difficult for students to pay their loans back.

“It would also throw the Government 7.5% further into debt over the next three years,” Mr Bradford said.

“Mr Anderton once again shows how shortsighted he is by claiming that young people would be better off at home on the unemployment benefit.

“The bigger picture shows that if a young person takes out an $11,000 loan and graduates with a Bachelor’s degree, they will earn $524,000 more in their life-time than someone who doesn’t undertake tertiary education,” Mr Bradford said.

ENDS

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